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September 11 attacks
This is a new article. As such is has been set to unassessed. |time-end= |timezone=UTC-4 |fatalities=2,977 victims and 19 hijackers |injuries=6,000+ |perps=al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden, see also Responsibility and Hijackers. }} lead The '''September 11 attacks' (often referred to as September 11th or 9/11) were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda upon the United States on September 11, 2001. On that morning, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners. The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, killing everyone on board and many others working in the buildings. Both buildings collapsed within two hours, destroying nearby buildings and damaging others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania after some of its passengers and flight crew attempted to retake control of the plane, which the hijackers had redirected toward Washington, D.C. There were no survivors from any of the flights. The death toll of the attacks was 2,996, including the 19 hijackers. The overwhelming majority of casualties were civilians, including nationals of over 70 countries. In addition, there is at least one secondary death – one person was ruled by a medical examiner to have died from lung disease due to exposure to dust from the World Trade Center's collapse. The United States responded to the attacks by launching the War on Terrorism: it invaded Afghanistan to depose the Taliban, who had harbored al-Qaeda terrorists. The United States also enacted the . Many other countries also strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation and expanded law enforcement powers. Some American stock exchanges stayed closed for the rest of the week following the attack and posted enormous losses upon reopening, especially in the airline and insurance industries. The destruction of billions of dollars worth of office space caused serious damage to the economy of Lower Manhattan. The damage to the Pentagon was cleared and repaired within a year, and the Pentagon Memorial was built adjacent to the building. The rebuilding process has started on the World Trade Center site. In 2006 a new office tower was completed on the site of 7 World Trade Center. 1 World Trade Center is currently under construction at the site and, at 1,776 ft (541 m) upon completion in 2013, it will become one of the tallest buildings in North America. Three more towers were originally expected to be built between 2007 and 2012 on the site. Ground was broken for the Flight 93 National Memorial on November 8, 2009, and the first phase of construction is expected to be ready for the 10th anniversary of the attacks on September 11, 2011.Ground broken for Flight 93 memorial in Pa. Attacks pt 1 Early on the morning of September 11, 2001, nineteen hijackers took control of four commercial airliners en route to San Francisco and Los Angeles from Boston, Newark, and Washington, D.C. (Washington Dulles International Airport). At 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 was crashed into the World Trade Center's North Tower, followed by United Airlines Flight 175 which hit the South Tower at 9:03 a.m. Another group of hijackers flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. A fourth flight, United Airlines Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania at 10:03 a.m, after the passengers on board engaged in a fight with the hijackers. Its ultimate target was thought to be either the Capitol (the meeting place of the United States Congress) or the White House. In a September 2002 interview conducted by documentary-maker Yosri Fouda, an al Jazeera journalist, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and stated that the fourth hijacked plane was heading for the United States Capitol, not for the White House. They further stated that Al-Qaeda initially planned to fly hijacked jets into nuclear installations rather than the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but it was decided not to attack nuclear power plants "for the moment" because of fears it could "get out of control". During the hijacking of the airplanes, the hijackers used weapons to stab and kill aircraft pilots, flight attendants and passengers. Reports from phone callers from the planes indicated that knives were used by the hijackers to stab attendants and in at least one case, a passenger, during two of the hijackings. Some passengers were able to make phone calls using the cabin airphone service and mobile phones, and provide details, including that several hijackers were aboard each plane, that mace or other form of noxious chemical spray, such as tear gas or pepper spray was used, and that some people aboard had been stabbed. The 9/11 Commission established that two of the hijackers had recently purchased Leatherman multi-function hand tools. A flight attendant on Flight 11, a passenger on Flight 175, and passengers on Flight 93 mentioned that the hijackers had bombs, but one of the passengers also mentioned he thought the bombs were fake. No traces of explosives were found at the crash sites, and the 9/11 Commission believed the bombs were probably fake. On United Airlines Flight 93, cockpit voice recorder recordings revealed that crew and passengers attempted to seize control of the plane from the hijackers after learning through phone calls that similarly hijacked planes had been crashed into buildings that morning. According to the transcript of Flight 93's recorder, one of the hijackers gave the order to roll the plane once it became evident that they would lose control of the plane to the passengers. Soon afterward, the aircraft crashed into a field near Shanksville in Stonycreek Township, Somerset County, Pennsylvania, at 10:03:11 a.m. local time (14:03:11 UTC). Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, organizer of the attacks, mentioned in a 2002 interview with Yosri Fouda that Flight 93's target was the United States Capitol, which was given the code name "the Faculty of Law". Three buildings in the World Trade Center Complex collapsed due to structural failure on the day of the attack. The south tower (2 WTC) fell at approximately 9:59 a.m., after burning for 56 minutes in a fire caused by the impact of United Airlines Flight 175. The north tower (1 WTC) collapsed at 10:28 a.m., after burning for approximately 102 minutes. When the north tower collapsed, debris that fell on the nearby (7 WTC) building damaged it and initiated fires. These fires burned for hours and compromised the building's structural integrity, which led to the crumbling of the east penthouse at 5:20 p.m. and to the complete collapse of the building at 5:21 p.m. The attacks created widespread confusion among news organizations and air traffic controllers across the United States. All international civilian air traffic was banned from landing on U.S. soil for three days. Aircraft already in flight were either turned back or redirected to airports in Canada or Mexico. News sources aired unconfirmed and often contradictory reports throughout the day. One of the most prevalent of these reported that a car bomb had been detonated at the U.S. State Department's headquarters in Washington, D.C. Soon after reporting for the first time on the Pentagon crash, some news media also briefly reported that a fire had broken out on the National Mall. Another report went out on the Associated Press wire, claiming that a Delta Air Lines airliner—Flight 1989—had been hijacked. This report, too, turned out to be in error; the plane was briefly thought to represent a hijack risk, but it responded to controllers and landed safely in Cleveland, Ohio. Casualties There were a total of 2,996 deaths, including the 19 hijackers and 2,977 victims. The victims were distributed as follows: 246 on the four planes (from which there were no survivors), 2,606 in New York City in the towers and on the ground, and 125 at the Pentagon. All the deaths in the attacks were civilians except for 55 military personnel killed at the Pentagon. pt 2 More than 90 countries lost citizens in the attacks on the World Trade Center. In 2007, the New York City medical examiner's office added Felicia Dunn-Jones to the official death toll from the September 11 attacks. Dunn-Jones died five months after 9/11 from a lung condition which was linked to exposure to dust during the collapse of the World Trade Center. Leon Heyward, who died of lymphoma in 2008, was added to the official death toll in 2009. NIST estimated that about 17,400 civilians were in the World Trade Center complex at the time of the attacks, while turnstile counts from the Port Authority suggest that 14,154 people were typically in the Twin Towers by 8:45 a.m. The vast majority of people below the impact zone safely evacuated the buildings, along with 18 people who were in the impact zone in the south tower and a number above the impact zone who evidently used the one intact stairwell in the south tower. At least 1,366 people died who were at or above the floors of impact in the North Tower and at least 618 in the South Tower, where evacuation had begun before the second impact. Thus over 90% of the workers and visitors who died in the Towers had been at or above impact. According to the Commission Report, hundreds were killed instantly by the impact, while the rest were trapped and died after tower collapse. At least 200 people jumped to their deaths from the burning towers (as depicted in the photograph "The Falling Man"), landing on the streets and rooftops of adjacent buildings hundreds of feet below. Some of the occupants of each tower above its point of impact made their way upward toward the roof in hope of helicopter rescue, but the roof access doors were locked. No plan existed for helicopter rescues, and on September 11, the thick smoke and intense heat would have prevented helicopters from conducting rescues. A total of 411 emergency workers who responded to the scene died as they attempted to rescue people and fight fires. The (FDNY) lost 341 firefighters and 2 FDNY paramedics. The New York City Police Department lost 23 officers. The Port Authority Police Department lost 37 officers, and 8 additional EMTs and paramedics from private EMS units were killed. Cantor Fitzgerald L.P., an investment bank on the 101st–105th floors of One World Trade Center, lost 658 employees, considerably more than any other employer. Marsh Inc., located immediately below Cantor Fitzgerald on floors 93–101 (the location of Flight 11's impact), lost 355 employees, and 175 employees of Aon Corporation were killed. After New York, New Jersey was the hardest hit state, with the city of Hoboken sustaining the most deaths. Weeks after the attack, the estimated death toll was over 6,000. The city was only able to identify remains for about 1,600 of the victims at the World Trade Center. The medical examiner's office also collected "about 10,000 unidentified bone and tissue fragments that cannot be matched to the list of the dead". Bone fragments were still being found in 2006 as workers were preparing to demolish the damaged . That operation was completed in 2007. On April 2, 2010 a team of anthropology and archaeological experts began searching for human remains, human artifacts and personal items at the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island. The operation was completed in June 2010 with 72 human remains found, bringing the total human remains found to 1,845. The identities of 1,629 of the 2,753 victims If we add up the 87 victims of Flight 11 ( ), the 60 victims of Flight 175 ( ) and the 2,606 victims of the towers ( ) we obtain a total of 2,753 victims. have been identified. DNA profiling in an attempt to identify additional victims is continuing.More remains found at WTC site Newsday June 22, 2010 Damage Along with the 110-floor Twin Towers of the World Trade Center itself, numerous other buildings at the World Trade Center site were destroyed or badly damaged, including 7 World Trade Center, 6 World Trade Center, 5 World Trade Center, 4 World Trade Center, the Marriott World Trade Center (3 WTC), and the World Financial Center complex and St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. The fall of the Twin Towers represented the only examples of total progressive collapse of steel-framed structures in history.Bažant, Z., Verdure, M.: Mechanics of Progressive Collapse, page 308. Journal of Engineering Mechanics, March 2007. damaged by fire and partly collapsed.]] The Deutsche Bank Building across Liberty Street from the World Trade Center complex was later condemned due to the uninhabitable, toxic conditions inside the office tower, and is undergoing deconstruction. The Borough of Manhattan Community College's Fiterman Hall at 30 West Broadway was also condemned due to extensive damage in the attacks, and is slated for deconstruction. Other neighboring buildings including 90 West Street and the Verizon Building suffered major damage, but have since been restored. World Financial Center buildings, One Liberty Plaza, the Millenium Hilton, and 90 Church Street had moderate damage. They have since been restored. Communications equipment on top of the North Tower, including broadcast radio, television and two-way radio antenna towers, was also destroyed, but media stations were quickly able to reroute signals and resume broadcasts. In Arlington County, a portion of the Pentagon was severely damaged by fire and one section of the building collapsed. Rescue and recovery The Fire Department of New York City (FDNY) quickly deployed 200 units (half of the department) to the site, whose efforts were supplemented by numerous off-duty firefighters and EMTs. The New York Police Department (NYPD) sent Emergency Service Units (ESU) and other police personnel, along with deploying its aviation unit. Once on the scene, the FDNY, NYPD, and Port Authority police did not coordinate efforts, and ended up performing redundant searches for civilians. As conditions deteriorated, the NYPD aviation unit relayed information to police commanders, who issued orders for its personnel to evacuate the towers; most NYPD officers were able to safely evacuate before the buildings collapsed. With separate command posts set up and incompatible radio communications between the agencies, warnings were not passed along to FDNY commanders. After the first tower collapsed, FDNY commanders did issue evacuation warnings, however, due to technical difficulties with malfunctioning systems, many firefighters never heard the evacuation orders. 9-1-1 dispatchers also received information from callers that was not passed along to commanders on the scene. Within hours of the attack, a substantial search and rescue operation was launched. After months of around-the-clock operations, the World Trade Center site was cleared by the end of May 2002. Attackers and their background Aftermath Long-term effects Economic aftermath The attacks had a significant economic impact on the United States and world markets. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the (AMEX), and NASDAQ did not open on September 11 and remained closed until September 17. When the stock markets reopened, the (DJIA) stock market index fell 684 points, or 7.1%, to 8921, a record-setting one-day point decline. By the end of the week, the DJIA had fallen 1,369.7 points (14.3%), its then-largest one-week point drop in history, though later surpassed in 2008 during the . U.S. stocks lost $1.4 trillion in value for the week. In New York City, about 430,000 job-months and $2.8 billion in wages were lost in the three months following the 9/11 attacks. The economic effects were mainly focused on the city's export economy sectors. The city's was estimated to have declined by $27.3 billion for the last three months of 2001 and all of 2002. The Federal government provided $11.2 billion in immediate assistance to the in September 2001, and $10.5 billion in early 2002 for economic development and infrastructure needs. The 9/11 attacks also hurt small businesses in Lower Manhattan near the World Trade Center, destroying or displacing about 18,000 of them. Assistance was provided by loans and federal government Community Development Block Grants and Economic Injury Disaster Loans. Some of Lower Manhattan office space was damaged or destroyed. Many wondered whether these jobs would return, and the damaged tax base recover. Studies of the economic effects of 9/11 show that the Manhattan office real-estate market and office employment were less affected than initially expected because of the financial services industry's need for face-to-face interaction. North American air space was closed for several days after the attacks and air travel decreased upon its reopening, leading to nearly a 20% cutback in air travel capacity, and exacerbating financial problems in the struggling U.S. airline industry. Health effects and smoke in New York City]] The thousands of tons of toxic debris resulting from the collapse of the Twin Towers consisted of more than 2,500 contaminants, including known carcinogens. This has led to debilitating illnesses among rescue and recovery workers, which many claim to be directly linked to debris exposure. For example, NYPD Officer Frank Macri died of lung cancer that spread throughout his body on September 3, 2007; his family contends the cancer is the result of long hours on the site and they have filed for line-of-duty death benefits, which the city has yet to rule on. Health effects have also extended to some residents, students, and office workers of Lower Manhattan and nearby Chinatown. Several deaths have been linked to the toxic dust caused by the World Trade Center's collapse and the victims' names will be included in the World Trade Center memorial. There is also scientific speculation that exposure to various toxic products in the air may have negative effects on fetal development. Due to this potential hazard, a notable children's environmental health center is currently analyzing the children whose mothers were pregnant during the WTC collapse, and were living or working near the World Trade Center towers. A study of rescue workers released in April 2010 found that all the workers studied had impaired lung functions, and that 30% to 40% of workers were reporting persistent symptoms that started within the first year of the attack with little or no improvement since.Lung Function of 9/11 Rescuers Fell, Study Finds The New York Times April 7, 2010 Legal disputes over the attendant costs of illnesses related to the attacks are still in the court system. On October 17, 2006, Government officials have been faulted for urging the public to return to lower Manhattan in the weeks shortly following the attacks. Christine Todd Whitman, administrator of the in the aftermath of the attacks, was heavily criticized for incorrectly saying that the area was environmentally safe. President Bush was criticized for interfering with EPA interpretations and pronouncements regarding air quality in the aftermath of the attacks. In addition, Mayor Giuliani was criticized for urging financial industry personnel to return quickly to the greater Wall Street area. Some Americans became alarmed at the prospect of using planes for travel, using automobiles instead. This resulted in an estimated 1,595 "excess" highway deaths in the ensuing year. Investigations FBI investigation Immediately after the attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation started PENTTBOM, the largest criminal inquiry in the history of the United States. The FBI told the U.S. Senate that there is "clear and irrefutable" evidence linking Al Qaida and Bin Laden to the attacks. 9/11 Commission The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission), chaired by former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, was formed in late 2002 to prepare a thorough account of the circumstances surrounding the attacks, including preparedness for, and the immediate response to, the attacks. On July 22, 2004, the 9/11 Commission issued the 9/11 Commission Report. The commission and its report have been subject to criticism. Collapse of the World Trade Center A federal technical building and fire safety investigation of the collapses of the Twin Towers and 7 WTC has been conducted by the United States Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The goals of this investigation were to determine why the buildings collapsed, the extent of injuries and fatalities, and the procedures involved in designing and managing the World Trade Center. The investigation into the collapse of 1 WTC and 2 WTC was concluded in October 2005, and the investigation into the collapse of 7 WTC concluded in August 2008. The report concluded that the fireproofing on the Twin Towers' steel infrastructures was blown off by the initial impact of the planes and that, if this had not occurred, the towers would likely have remained standing. A study published by researchers of Purdue University confirmed that, if the thermal insulation on the core columns were scoured off and column temperatures were elevated to approximately 700 °C, the fire would have been sufficient to initiate collapse. , the director of the original investigation, commented that "the towers really did amazingly well. The terrorist aircraft didn’t bring the buildings down; it was the fire which followed. It was proven that you could take out two thirds of the columns in a tower and the building would still stand." The fires weakened the trusses supporting the floors, making the floors sag. The sagging floors pulled on the exterior steel columns to the point where exterior columns bowed inward. With the damage to the core columns, the buckling exterior columns could no longer support the buildings, causing them to collapse. In addition, the report asserts that the towers' stairwells were not adequately reinforced to provide emergency escape for people above the impact zones. NIST concluded that uncontrolled fires in 7 WTC caused floor beams and girders to heat and subsequently "caused a critical support column to fail, initiating a fire-induced progressive collapse that brought the building down". Internal review of the CIA The Inspector General of the CIA conducted an internal review of the CIA's pre-9/11 performance and was harshly critical of senior CIA officials for not doing everything possible to confront terrorism. He criticized their failure to stop two of the 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, as they entered the United States and their failure to share information on the two men with the FBI. In May 2007, senators from both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party drafted legislation that would openly present an internal CIA investigative report. One of the backers, Senator Ron Wyden stated "The American people have a right to know what the Central Intelligence Agency was doing in those critical months before 9/11.... I am going to bulldog this until the public gets it." The report investigates the responsibilities of individual CIA personnel before and after the 9/11 attacks. The report was completed in 2005, but its details have never been released to the public. Rebuilding On the day of the attacks, New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani proclaimed, "We will rebuild. We're going to come out of this stronger than before, politically stronger, economically stronger. The skyline will be made whole again." The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, tasked with coordinating rebuilding efforts at the World Trade Center site, was criticized for doing little with the enormous funding directed to the rebuilding efforts. Aside from construction of 7 World Trade Center, adjacent to the main site and completed in 2006, and the PATH station, which opened in late 2003, work on rebuilding on the main World Trade Center site was delayed until late 2006 when leaseholder Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey came to an agreement on financing of the new buildings. The 1 World Trade Center is currently under construction at the site and at 1,776 ft (541 m) upon completion in 2011, will become one of the tallest buildings in North America, behind only the CN Tower in Toronto. Freedom Tower name changed to One World Trade Center Newsday March 26, 2009 Three more towers were expected to be built between 2007 and 2012 on the site, and will be located one block east of where the original towers stood. After the late-2000s recession, the site's owners said that construction of new towers could be delayed until 2036. The damaged section of the Pentagon was rebuilt and occupied within a year of the attacks. Memorials In the days immediately following the attacks, many memorials and vigils were held around the world. In addition, pictures were placed all over Ground Zero. A witness described being unable to "get away from faces of innocent victims who were killed. Their pictures are everywhere, on phone booths, street lights, walls of subway stations. Everything reminded me of a huge funeral, people quiet and sad, but also very nice. Before, New York gave me a cold feeling; now people were reaching out to help each other.” viewed from on the anniversary of the attacks in 2004]] One of the first memorials was the Tribute in Light, an installation of 88 searchlights at the footprints of the World Trade Center towers which projected two vertical columns of light into the sky. In New York, the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition was held to design an appropriate memorial on the site. The winning design, , was selected in August 2006, and consists of a pair of reflecting pools in the footprints of the towers, surrounded by a list of the victims' names in an underground memorial space. Plans for a museum on the site have been put on hold, following the abandonment of the International Freedom Center in reaction to complaints from the families of many victims. The Pentagon Memorial was completed and opened to the public on the seventh anniversary of the attacks, September 11, 2008. It consists of a landscaped park with 184 benches facing the Pentagon. When the Pentagon was repaired in 2001–2002, a private chapel and indoor memorial were included, located at the spot where Flight 77 crashed into the building. At Shanksville, a permanent Flight 93 National Memorial is planned to include a sculpted grove of trees forming a circle around the crash site, bisected by the plane's path, while wind chimes will bear the names of the victims. A temporary memorial is located from the crash site. New York City firefighters donated a memorial to the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Department. It is a cross made of steel from the World Trade Center and mounted on top of a platform shaped like the Pentagon. It was installed outside the firehouse on August 25, 2008. Many other permanent memorials are being constructed elsewhere, and scholarships and charities have been established by the victims' families, along with many other organizations and private figures. Final resting place for WTC victims Following the attacks, the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island was temporarily reopened to receive and process much of the debris from the destruction of the World Trade Center. The debris contained the remains of many of the victims; much of it in the form of dust and small fragments. In August 2005 17 plaintiffs, claiming to have support from 1,000 other relatives, filed a case in court to have the City of New York move nearly one million tons of material from the Fresh Kills landfill to another location where it would be sifted and placed in a cemetery. Norman Siegel, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, stated "It comes down to this: Are we prepared to leave hundreds of body parts and human remains on top of a garbage dump?" James E. Tyrrell, a lawyer representing the city, argued "You have to be able to particularize and say it's your body part. All that's left here is a bunch of undifferentiated dust." On March 26, 2010, families of 9/11 victims received notice that the city will conduct a sifting operation for World Trade Center remains at the Fresh Kills landfill. The operation is scheduled to take three months at an estimated cost of $1.4 million. Anthropologists and other trained professionals will carefully evaluate and search the material, and potential remains will be sent for further testing to the laboratories of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. See also *Families of September 11 *List of terrorist incidents, 2001 *Post-9/11 legal issues *Survivor registry References External links *National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States official commission website *September 11, 2001, Documentary Project from the U.S. Library of Congress, Memory.loc.gov *September 11, 2001, Web Archive from the U.S. Library of Congress, Minerva *September 11 Digital Archive: Saving the Histories of September 11, 2001 from the Center for History and New Media and the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning * *New York Fire Department audio tapes from September 11, 2001 from TheMemoryHole.org *DoD: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Verbatim Transcript of Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing for ISN 10024, From WikiSource *Sept. 11 Co-Conspirators from the U.S. Defense Department on Military Commissions including case documents on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed et al. *Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 from TheMemoryHole.org *Statistics from September 11 Numbers of victims, deaths, other information Multimedia *CNN.com – Video archive, including the first and second planes. *Inside 9/11 – National Geographic Society *Time.com – 'Shattered: a remarkable collection of photographs', James Nachtwey *September 11, 2001 Screenshot Archive – Database of 230 screenshots from news sites around the world. * *9/11 tragedy pager intercepts. from [[Wikileaks]] *Aerial photos of 9/11 released photo gallery on MyNorthwest.com Memorials *CNN September 11 Memorial – List of victims, and photos. }} Category:Content Category:Airliner hijackings Category:Terrorist incidents in the United States